Silent Scream: Alyson Faye
Exclusive First Chapter Excerpt
Kendall Reviews are delighted to be able to share the first chapter from Alyson Faye’s latest chiller Silent Scream.
Steve Stred has described Silent Scream as ‘an amazing piece of fiction’ and Alyson Faye as a ‘master craftsman with dark fiction’. You can read Steve’s Kendall Review HERE
For additional reading, Alyson wrote a fascinating piece on the real horror story behind Silent Scream
Now, please enjoy the first chapter of Silent Scream…
London, July 1977
The light from the projector flickered over the occupants of the viewing room; the red velvet plush seats now stained claret and the bodies lying strewn around—a trio of broken dolls. Blood trickled from their faces, hands frozen in claws, trousers sodden with piss, mouths open in silent screams. A fourth figure sat huddled in the corner nearest the door, rocking himself, froth speckling his lips, as he muttered the Lord’s Prayer. The silvery projection light illuminated his scalp, partly bald where he’d torn out his own hair only minutes earlier.
Arthur Kincaid, film producer at Pinewood Studios, never again returned to his former job, or home or remembered his name or those of his nearest and dearest. When the paramedics arrived, phoned by the building’s receptionist after she couldn’t gain entry through the locked door to Viewing Room 4, Kincaid muttered the same words again and again – “He’s coming. He’s coming for you.”
The film reel which was sitting in the old-fashioned projector was packed away and stored by the police for evidence and a possible trial. However, it was concluded the three other men had committed suicide and Arthur Kincaid was judged insane, so the reels were shipped to Kincaid’s solicitors, as his had been the name on the booking label.
There had been no need to watch the film. No one was that interested anyway. It was only a movie and it had nothing to do with the horrific tragedies, did it?
London, current day
Jimmy flourished the letter at the dining table. “It’s from Sproggins and Sons, that fancy pants solicitors Uncle Arthur employed. Remember?” he asked Ivy, his sister, who calmly continued spreading home-made marmalade on toast, methodically covering the edges.
“Not really,” Ivy replied.
“Uncle Arthur’s finally popped his clogs, in that mad house he lived in . . .”
“Home for the Mentally Ill,” Ivy reproved her brother, but smiled as she did so.
“Yeah, whatever, sis. He was off his head. Anyway, he’s left me everything. Sole surviving male heir. Nothing for you—guess Uncle Arthur wasn’t into gender equality! I get his house, his car—hey, didn’t he have a Rolls back in the day? When he worked at Pinewood? The house contents and ‘other possessions held in care by ourselves’ – old Sproggy-face says here. What do you think they might be? Diamonds? Gold sovereigns? I mean Uncle Arthur was rolling in it, wasn’t he? Didn’t he have a hit with that horror film, The Mummy’s Here! The one with all those female victims who kept losing their clothes along the way?”
Ivy nodded. “Don’t get too excited, Jimmy. Remember the costs of the nursing home. I expect there won’t be much left now.”
“What there is though—it’s all mine!” Jimmy was jubilant.
Ivy eyed her younger brother with a blend of tolerance and exasperation.
In truth the windfall had come at an opportune time for Jimmy’s personal finances, which were at an all-time low. “I’ll go make the appointment with Frogspawn and son, right this minute.” Tigger-like he jogged from the dining room.
Ivy sighed. Jimmy was a handful and she rather hoped he’d move out one day and leave her to her own life, but he showed no sign of that. She ate another piece of toast, nibbling precisely from the crust inwards.
Silent Scream
A lost silent horror film from 1928. An inheritance tainted with madness and death. A long-dead film actress whose diary speaks from the grave of evil, corruption and debauchery. A missing film actor whose stardust life unravelled into grotesquerie.
Can a one-hundred-year-old film destroy lives today? How far will Ivy have to go to find the truth? And who will she have to lose along the way?
Midnight’s Terror is coming to a cinema near you – soon. Beware.
You can buy Silent Scream from Amazon UK & Amazon US
Alyson Faye
Alyson lives in West Yorkshire, UK with her husband, teen son and four rescue animals. Her fiction has been published widely in print anthologies – DeadCades, Women in Horror Annual 2, Trembling with Fear 1 &2, Coffin Bell Journal 1, Stories from Stone, Ellipsis, Rejected ed. Erin Crocker) and in many ezines, but most often on the Horror Tree site, in Siren’s Call and The Casket of Fictional Delights.
Demain published her 1940’s set noir crime novella, Maggie of my Heart in 2019. (Her homage to film noir).
Currently she has stories in the Strange Girls anthology (ed. Azzurra Nox), Burning Love from Things in the Well, and in two Gypsum Sound Tales anthologies:- Amongst Friends and Colp: Black and Grey.
The NHS charity anthology, Diabolica Britannica, which is at the top of the Amazon bestseller horror charts contains a story by Alyson, set in Ilkley. She has a dark poem in the upcoming poetry anthology, Air, from Tyche Books.
Her work has been read on BBC Radio, local radio, on several podcasts (e.g. Ladies of Horror), posted on YouTube and placed in competitions.
More information about Black Angel Press will be announced shortly.
Her blog is at www.alysonfayewordpress.com
Twitter:- @AlysonFaye2
Her publications are listed on her Amazon author’s page: HERE
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